Making Space for Conversations That Matter with Laura Prisc

If you're familiar with the concept of Adverse Childhood Events (ACE score) and their impact on how children navigate life and become adults, you'll be astounded by Tabitha's story. She's been through too many of those experiences one would hope to never encounter: Abusive father, divorce (her parent's, and later, her own); raised by a single mom, who passed when Tabitha was only 15; dropped out of high school; teenage pregnancy; loss of faith… the challenges sound so overwhelming.

And yet, they do not define who Tabitha Holliman is today. She's not only survived, she's thriving. She truly is the personification of resilience and is on a mission today to help other women grow into their personal resilience, as well.

Today, she's a happily married mother of four. She holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Accounting, and has a busy Tax Accounting practice. She's learning to homeschool. She helps small businesses implement systems that allow them to grow and thrive. She coaches women through some really difficult times in their lives. And she recently developed and presented a multi-week online program – The Resilient Woman Series.

Listen in as Tabitha shares her story, the lessons she learned along the way, the support she encountered, and some powerful words of wisdom. This episode will allow you to reframe the way you view, attach meaning to, and experience a multitude of events in your own life.

Tabitha's Bio

Tabitha Hollimon is a Georgia native, a Georgia Peach! She is married to Joe and they have 4 children. She has a Masters's Degree in Accounting and more than a decade of tax accounting experience. She specializes in working with small business owners and entrepreneurial individuals who seek to expand their financial business knowledge.

She also has a passion to support families, especially women, whether stay-at-home moms or career women. She has dedicated 10 years to women's ministry and children's ministry. Tabitha has made a stride to facilitate community and networking as one of her superpowers. She has a heart for people!

Connect with Tabitha:

Resilient Woman Series

Tabitha via email

Tabitha on Facebook

Tabitha's Tax Accounting Services

When you talk with Cesar, you recognize quickly he's an expert in his field. He's worked in the Oil & Gas industry for decades and he has the technical side of his work down pat! But he hasn't rested on that expertise. About halfway into his tenure, he realized there was a lot more going on in his workspace that hadn't been addressed in his education or work experience to that point.

With a desire to help his colleagues understand the real implications of all the data they all collected, studied, and made decisions from, Cesar started studying, again. The missing pieces were connected to sociology and psychology; essentially, the insight into understanding the human dynamics and how to use that to improve work environments and outcomes.

Laura and Cesar explore a number of ideas, including some of the universal truths Laura has discovered over the course of her work and learning journey: Intent does NOT Equal Impact, One Size does NOT Fit All, Self-Awareness is the foundation of Emotional Intelligence… and one of Cesar's favorites: Sometimes we don't know what we don't know!

If you've been wondering what you might not know, you'll definitely want to listen to this episode carefully, and likely more than once; it's a mini-masterclass in emotional intelligence.

Cesar's Bio

Cesar Ramos is a Subject Matter Expert in Project Controls, also providing Oracle P6 & Risk Training & Consulting for the Oil & Gas industry.

His career began in construction, then shifted into engineering and front-end engineering of Onshore, Offshore, and Subsea work. He's been responsible for Project Controls, Planning/Scheduling, Risk Analysis, Progress Measurement, Earned Value, Cost Control, Procurement, and Estimating over the course of his 20 years in the field. He dedicated the half of his career pursuing the expert level knowledge of advanced Planning/Scheduling methodologies & the future of Earned Value, before beginning to explore the human element that is present in all roles, industries, and businesses.

Connect with Cesar:

Advanced Planning Analytics

Cesar via email

Joe Sinnott has led and interesting life, and it's early, yet! Originally from New Jersey, he found himself living on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, as an engineer fresh out of college! While it wasn't just as he'd expected, the experience gave him several significant blessings.

First, the company he worked for very serious about safety, as one would hope, especially in that line of work. But the training Joe went through instilled some foundational thinking practices within him that extend far beyond just safety and still impact who he is today and how he shows up.

Second, he has one of those great "How I Met Your Mother" stories to share with his children! Because his job required that he be geographically distant and somewhat isolated, he was surrounded only by people there to do a job. So, when he decided he wanted a romantic relationship, he had to get creative. He and his wife connected online and spent a lot (A LOT!) of time exchanging long and deep emails about the more significant issues in life – building intimacy through vulnerability.

Third, as the company was preparing for internal leadership changes, Joe recognized opportunity coming and used that awareness – plus time and space – to imagine what his next phase of work might look like. Because he was open to possibility and not in a pressure situation, he was able to step into his current work from a place of resourcefulness, possibility, and creativity.

Listen in for more about Joe's journey, the work he's doing today – Coaching emerging leaders in Oil & Gas, so they can live and lead more meaningful lives.

Joe's Bio

Joe Sinnott is an executive coach and the founder of Witting Partners, where he equips emerging energy industry leaders with the practical tools needed to successfully navigate the ever-present volatility, intensity, and generational gaps that can quickly rob them and their stakeholders of motivation, engagement, and productivity.

Joe also hosts The Energy Detox podcast, where he helps listeners sustainably produce the figurative energy needed to lead themselves, their organizations, and their families toward a more satisfying future by identifying and flushing away the hidden—and often toxic—barriers to peak performance.

Joe's coaching leverages his technical background and his 14 years of energy industry experience, first as an offshore field engineer for global oilfield services company Schlumberger, followed by a variety of leadership positions at EQT, America's largest producer of natural gas.

A twin dad, chemical engineer, and 2005 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Joe currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife Becky and their 4 children.

Connect with Joe:

Witting Partners: Fueling Sustainable Leaders

The Energy Detox Podcast

Joe on LinkedIn

I haven't met a person yet who hasn't had some kind of struggle with developing and sustaining healthy eating practices, and Ricki Heller is no exception. As she describes it, she grew up with the ultimate junk food diet – TV dinners, mac & cheese, and lots of baked goods. Which was fun until it wasn't!

Eventually, she developed Candida, which is an overgrowth of a naturally occurring yeast we all have in our bodies. At normal levels, this is ok… overgrowth, however, can make you very, very sick, as Ricki experienced and describes in today's episode. It was truly debilitating.

Her path forward was either an extremely restricted diet or be very, very ill. What would you choose? Surely, this is one of those "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" experiences.

Ricki learned to cook with healthy, nutritional, whole foods from scratch and has developed significant expertise in developing recipes that she's published in cookbooks and through her blog. Taken a step farther, she's shared what she's learned about how one can create and sustain a healthy eating plan through one-on-one and small group coaching programs.

She says it's important to create boundaries and stick with them. The key is to make the choices for the healthy options so routine, so habitual that they simply happen in the moment and you don't even have to think about them; this is an auto-pilot program that works in our favor!

The key, however, is getting to the root of our thinking about food, the relationship we develop with it over the course of our lives and understanding what triggers we encounter that can send us down unhealthy paths. In her mind there are three key ideas or actions to take: Address the food itself and eliminate what is bad for you; become aware of the habits we form around eating and certain foods; and learn to recognize the emotions we have around eating and certain foods.

When you understand the triggers or initiating events, then you can make more mindful choices about what will truly feed and nourish you. Ricki is a wealth of information on this topic, so settle in and get ready to learn!

Ricki's Bio

Ricki Heller, R.H.N, PhD, is a healthy eating coach, educator, writer and whole foods recipe developer. She helps people with dietary restrictions love food again without feeling deprived, so they can focus on healing and focus on living their best lives.

Through her coaching and online programs, Ricki shares her passion for living well without sugar, gluten, eggs, or dairy and teaches people how to thrive no matter their dietary restrictions.

She is also the author of four books, including Sweet Freedom, which was recommended by Ellen DeGeneres, and the bestselling guide and cookbook, Living Candida-Free. She contributes frequently to various magazines and websites, as well as appearing regularly on TV and podcasts.

Ricki is also a dog mom, pop culture fanatic, and die-hard chocoholic. She lives with her husband and two fur babies, Chaser and Zoey, just north of Toronto.

Connect with Ricki:

Ricki Online

Get her Free Tool here

Subscribe for weekly emails with recipes and health info!

Coaching with Ricki

Join the Sweet Life Club

Do you recognize this person? Relentlessly driven, often exhausted, setting extremely high expectations for herself (himself), never quite meeting them, unhappy, frustrated, short, and at the end of it?!! That's close to how Jen Sherwood describes her previous existence.

In this episode, Laura and Jen dig into some of the pressures we all seem to face in life, and those particularly experienced by women – media representations of what it requires to be beautiful, healthy, young, attractive, polished, professional, etc… It's unrealistic, sometimes damaging, and not conducive to living a healthy, satisfying life if we allow ourselves to get caught up in those expectations, measures, practices.

While Jen was that perfectionist, never-quite-meeting-expectations, young mom twenty years ago, she finally woke up one day and decided she wanted to feel better. Her journey started with a therapist, expanded to a coach who "rocked my world," she says… and eventually brought her to a place of discovering what fills and feeds her at a deep level.

Choosing to invest in herself, her sanity, and her future, Jen earned her coaching certification and left her job as a Pediatric Audiologist and how helps women reconnect with themselves and live better lives.

"I've had so much self-doubt," she explains. "When I'm vulnerable, there are so many more rich experiences…" She goes on to blast the myth about our practice of "armoring up" to go out and face the world as if we are all powerful, have it all together, and cannot be hurt by others. The truth is, we carry this heavy armor, but it doesn't actually protect us; we still experience the hurts of life.

Jennifer's Bio

Jennifer Sherwood works with women who are overwhelmed, feel pulled between the demands of work and home, rarely make time for themselves, and worry that this is as good as it gets. She helps them move themselves up on the priority list so can build a life they LOVE, not just tolerate.

Jen is a certified coach, speaker, and blogger. She is passionate about women making time for themselves so they can show up in their lives the way they want to...not stressed and resentful.

Jen holds a master's degree in Audiology (aka hearing science) and her previous career focus was in pediatrics, which means she knows a thing or two about working with women, moms, and families in times of stress or uncertainty.

Connect with Jennifer:

Jennifer Online

Jennifer on Facebook

Jennifer on Instagram -- @jensherwood22

Discovering your "superpower" and finding your perfect niche – that sweet spot where you get to do really good work and have a lot of fun doing it – is often an iterative process. We try, learn, shift, learn some more… and along the way we narrow, redefine, explore, and discover what we're good at and what we enjoy doing. At least if we are in the process of exploring and seeking.

And that's what happened for Jen Liddy. Born curious, she loved learning. The first in her family to attend college, she thought there was only one recipe for success and she seemed to be missing "the" elusive magical ingredient. By allowing herself the freedom to 'dip her toes in and see how it goes…' she eventually realized the truth. There isn't just one recipe for success; as unique individuals, our paths will be different and our niche's will be, as well.

And she's tried a few… from HS English Teacher to partner in a fitness studio, into Life Coaching, and now in her sweet spot – Business Development Coaching. Serving women business owners who are in the middle of their business and feel like the business is running them instead of the other way around.

Her unique gifts allow her to deeply listen and pull out the core language we use to express what we need and then how to create the powerful messaging in response. The ideal outcome is helping a client craft that messaging that allows her to connect with her ideal clients, so they can do powerful work together.

Jen shares some of the challenges and lessons encountered and learned along her journey. She shares insights into what she's learned that has been helpful for her. Together, Jen and Laura discuss some of the tools they use in their coaching practices to help those who come to them.

Jen's Bio

After making the terrifying leap into entrepreneurship from education, Jen Liddy learned how grow a business from the inside out via a brick & mortar fitness studio.

She learned all. the. lessons. the hard way… so much so that eventually her business ran her instead of her running it!

Now, as a Business Development Coach, Jen teaches women how to grow businesses that work for them and their life. Learn more and connect with her below.

Connect with Jen:

Jen Online

Instagram -- @JenLiddyCoach

Jen on Facebook

Donald Miller's Storybrand

It's inevitable; no one of us is immune to this experience. At some point, our lives will be turned completely upside down… sometimes because of a decision we made or an action we took and sometimes due to circumstances beyond our control.

As the saying goes: We don't get to choose what happens to us; we get to choose how we respond to what happens to us. And that makes all the difference! Maria has experienced a few upheavals in her life and today she shares some of what she's learned through the process.

For her, it's actively attending to "how we bounce!" She encourages her clients to take stock of the tools in their possession: Assess your core values – they will guide you to make decisions based on what matters most. Take time in solitude to listen to your own inner wisdom. Learn through experience by adjusting, adapting, and innovating along the way.

Laura and Maria also dig into the idea that sometimes the stuff we pick up and carry through our lives isn't "our" stuff, isn't our responsibilities; recognizing and releasing is key here. Their collective wisdom and insight guides you to this:

Do the best you can in the moment.

Reserve the right to be smarter tomorrow.

Make new choices when you know better.

Find an experienced guide to help you grow through the upheavals and transitions in your life.

Maria's Bio

María Tomás-Keegan is a Career & Life Coach for Women, specializing in transitions—what she calls "the Upside Downs of Life." Her 30-year career in corporate management, coupled with her experience navigating many personal life-changing events along the way, has evolved into compassion for women who feel they need to be super-human. Family, friends, community, and career make for a full plate, and many women feel the need to be perfect at all of it, all the time. You're not alone!

She is an award-winning author of Upside Down to Right Side Up: Turning Transition into Triumph, speaker, and producer and host of an international TV podcast on VoiceAmerica TV called Tips for the Transition.

Connect with Maria:

Maria Online

Maria's Podcast

Maria's FREE ebook

Maria's other ebooks

If you've not heard the term, "Headtrash," before… you'll recognize it as "stinkin' thinkin'" or the voice in your head that tells you you're not good enough, not able, not worth it… what have you. Laura thinks of that voice as a personal Gremlin and it taunts us with self-limiting beliefs far too often. It's the stuff that keeps us smaller than we are meant to be, and from taking risks, exploring new things, and going on adventures.

Jon jokingly says, "If you're going to make excuses, as least make them World Class!" He shares the story of how he recognized his personal headtrash and over time was able to overcome and release much of it.

It starts in numerous ways, but shows up when we compare ourselves to others, berate or belittle ourselves and accomplishments, use words like "never" and "always…" anything that turns into negative self-talk. Looking back, Jon recognizes his intense experience with it began when he was only 11 years old.

His belief that no one could possibly like him if they knew what he was really like shaped his thinking, his behaviors, and his actions over much of his life. He spent an enormous amount of time, effort, and energy in building just the right persona – wearing the right clothes, doing the right kind of work, having the right address, driving the right cars, and belonging to the right groups.

As you can imagine, it was exhausting and hard to maintain. It wasn't doing much for his personal relationships, either.

Listen in and learn how Jon discovered his personal headtrash, the practices he's put in place that helped him release that line of thinking and step into his life in an authentic way, and which allow him to do the work he does today – helping businesses increase revenue.

Jon's Bio

Jon Keel has developed a reputation as a results-oriented Business Advisor, having been involved in this arena since January 1997. In addition to being CEO and Founder of Improved Results (www.Improved-Results.com), which he founded in 1997, he co-developed the Xavier University MBA E-Business program, where he taught Online Marketing and E-Commerce.

He frequently speaks to audiences about performance-based marketing for online and offline businesses. He has written numerous articles and has appeared on several TV and radio news and talk programs. He co-developed the first pay-per-click search engine bid management software and wrote the first book on pay-per-click search engines, "Instant Web Site Traffic."

With bachelor's and master's degrees in Engineering, Jon moved to Cincinnati in 1971, with the Procter and Gamble Company. He left P&G in 1973, to work for The Henry P. Thompson Company, and over a 22-year period became the owner and President/CEO. He sold his interest in the company in 1995. In 1987, he received an MBA from Xavier University. He currently resides in Dublin, Ohio, with his wife of 48 years, Colleen.

Connect with Jon:

Jon online

The 14-Day Slingshot Challenge

5 Marks of a Man – book

The term "Mastermind" is used in a lot of different ways by a lot of different people, which makes it hard to know what someone really means when they say it. Laura asking Dave to define it from his perspective is the start of another engaging conversation on this week's episode of Making Space for Conversations that Matter.

Dave references Napoleon Hill's work, from Think and Grow Rich, which says that a mastermind is a coordinated effort toward a definite purpose; a group of like-minded individuals coming together to think, explore, learn, grow, maybe even solve a few problems along the way. And says his thinking about what structure it takes has loosened up a bit over time.

These days it could be a group of people engaged in a book study. It might be a group of people who engage in deep discussions on a consistent basis, exploring the meaning of life or other such topics. It might be a focused group of business owners who come together to grow themselves, their businesses, and each other's businesses in the process. Whatever the details of the members and the focus, it's often marked by deep bonding between members and the development of a safe space in which to be vulnerable. There's also an element of accountability built in, which creates an environment of real progress over time.

"We all have flaws and challenges," he says. "We need to know we're in an environment which is safe for growth."

Laura and Dave dive deeper into how a mastermind might function and Dave shares a process and format he's used in groups he's facilitated and participated in. That leads into some discussion about online marketing strategies and tactics, values-based behaviors, and more.

When I asked Dave for his Bio, here's what he shared with me…

"What the hell have you done?" my wife was a little suspicious as I handed her the bunch of flowers... As it turns out her suspicions were correct, I'd just quit my job as a systems analyst and borrowed £13,000 to buy my father's failed print finishing business from the liquidators. If I'm honest, that may well have been the first nail in the coffin of my first marriage. That was the start of my entrepreneurial journey, now fast forward to today... As a visionary and strategist, I enjoy starting and working with others to start new ventures from the ground up and then handing them over to my management teams to run day-to-day because they're usually better than me at doing that! I've started, developed and grown over 30 small businesses in many different sectors! Fact is, I love doing what I do and was once described as a "serial entrepreneur"... though I'm not sure whether that was a compliment or not?

One of my mentors, John Maxwell, says "Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn!" Well, that's certainly been the case for me. I've had several failures in business - some of them catastrophic, but every one of them provided valuable lessons and helped me grow and develop. This development led me to realize I had experiences valuable to others in similar situations, but I didn't know how I could help them. The solution presented itself in 2011, when I joined LEAD Wales and experienced coaching for the first time. My coaching journey progressed and led to my earning ICF accreditation then Certification by the US-based, John Maxwell Team. The result: My team and I have launched an exclusive co-working space and business club for entrepreneurs who want to develop themselves so they can, in turn, develop their staff and their businesses. Come visit us in Llantrisant (UK) and see what all the fuss is about - contact me to arrange a visit.

Resources discussed and connect with Dave here:

Dave on Facebook

Dave on LinkedIn

729 Renegades Mastermind Groups

It's been many years ago, but once upon a time, Sherrie Dunlevy had a baby boy named Brandon. He lived just 29 days. "He made a greater impact on so many lives in just 29 days than some have in a lifetime," she explains.

The aftermath of Brandon's passing was unexpected in so many ways. Lifelong friends vanished. People they would never have imagined would, showed up. Instead of allowing herself to get caught up in the obvious question of "Why did this happen to us, to me?" Sherrie moved on to asking: "What now?"

She took a close look at her life, her work, her marriage, her relationships, and decided she wanted to live a life of purpose and passion. And she wrote a book – How Can I Help? – to offer others insight into how they might help someone in grief, or going through difficult times, when the right words are elusive.

She's since done a lot of work helping others understand, sit with, and move through grief. "Grief is the loss of anything we hold dear," she explains. "It might be death, a divorce, loss of a job, a medical diagnosis… and we need to learn that it's ok – healthy – to talk through these things, even when it's hard or the words fail us."

And, feeling called to be an inspirer, she's focused on being what she calls an "Inspirationista"! Not only does she share the "inspiration strikes" she receives, but she seeks out other sources of inspiration and shares them, as well. Striving to live an authentic life – who she was truly meant to be – and hoping to model that behavior for others, Sherrie is a dynamic force of energy.

Sherrie's Bio

What is an "Inspirationista"? Well, for Sherrie Dunlevy, it's a way of life. A calling. A symbol for stepping into greatness and helping others to be their best selves despite what might have happened in the past. Sherrie is a bereaved mother, author of the book, "How Can I Help?" and has leaped headlong into this vocation following a lengthy career as a Radio and TV news personality.

Sherrie now spends her time putting good into the universe and bringing positivity to people through her Facebook Group All Things Awesome, as host of the Grief Anonymous Podcast, and through her talks and workshops. She believes all of us have the power to make a positive impact in this world if we choose to step into love!

Connect with Sherrie:

Sherrie Online

Sherrie by email

Sherrie on Facebook

Sherrie on LinkedIn

Get the Book – How Can I Help?